Colonial Tire: Great alignment place in RTP, cheap too!

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:17 pm

Well, I took the Focus ST to Colonial this morning. This time, it hasn't gone well.

I asked for 0 toe front and rear, and they did exactly that, I watched the whole thing. But when I got it out on the road, the steering wheel is off center. And I hate that. I'm not sure it's worth taking it back for them to have another go at it - I saw the measurements, they were fine. Leads me to believe maybe the machine is out of calibration?

So, who else do we like these days? I need this fairly soon. I haven't called Performance Chassis yet, since they're really quite far away from me. Digital Chassis, as ever, doesn't pick up the phone, and their voicemail box is full so I can't even leave a message with them. I gave up on him a long time ago and it was because of that kind of thing.

Edit: I'm in Janko's waiting room even as I speak.

jeremy gast · **Posted:** Fri Apr 24, 2015 3:50 pm

Make sure you tell seabass about the wheel location. Sometimes on FRANK he didnt line it up either.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Fri Apr 24, 2015 8:15 pm

How about http://bimmerperformancecenter.com/ ?

They have an alignment rack and a NASA approved dyno. I was there Wednesday with a freelance fabricator who was using their lathe and welder for a Koni strut insert project for my Mustang.

They do normal street car work as well as "track cars". I have no idea of pricing or backlog, etc.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Fri Apr 24, 2015 8:39 pm

I may actually have been unfair to Colonial. This car wasn't as easy to align as I thought.

I ended up at Janko, and Sebastian worked on it. Nice guy who clearly knows his stuff. I sat in the car and held an iron grip on the steering wheel, sighting down the steering wheel to the gauge cluster with one eye closed. It was perfect, and it was perfect when we rolled it off the machine. Drove it down the road and the steering wheel was still off.

So he put it back on the rack and took another crack at it. Same deal, only this time it actually got worse.

Finally, on the third time, I got out of the car. He still had a "steering wheel hold in place thing" put on, so that wasn't any different. But this time, I let him drive it, he brought it back and said he thought it was straight. And sure enough, it's perfect.

Very, very strange.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Fri Apr 24, 2015 10:53 pm

When the steering wheel isn't too far off DIY might be practical depending on the car. Simply turn the tie rods in 1/4 increments with one side more "in" and the other side more "out". Determine which way the car turns if you hold the wheel straight and turn the rods to "steer" in the other direction. Other than the usual crawling, etc. the hardest part is keeping track of which direction to turn the rods, especially when the rack is behind the spindle so "more toe in" requires lengthening the rod.

ChrisBarefoot · **Posted:** Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:58 am

Another positive experience to add to the list.

Took our chumpcar there yesterday. The guys were very accommodating given all the 'headaches' of such a car. I enjoyed watching the guy's reaction when asked for the key

The car bottomed out trying to get it up on the lift. They were able to get some scrap wood from the back to help out, but if your car is particularly low, it wouldn't be a bad idea to bring along two small 2x4's.

During the alignment, they let us hang out around the car and the guy would basically ask exactly what specs we wanted as he was tweaking things.

I forgot to bring in the online coupon, but even still at $80 and the fact that they saw us on such short notice (1 day) I would definitely recommend them as a good alternative alignment shop.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Tue Jul 21, 2015 4:35 pm

Yep, I am still a fan. I don't know what was going on with my ST that one time, but they were one of two shops that struggled to get it straightened out. I ended up taking it to the dealer where I bought it in the end, because the other place (not Colonial) forgot to tighten one of the jam nuts at the tie rod. The car had been progressively toeing itself in.

Who knows what the car was set to at the Match Tour.

Looks like Colonial has raised their prices to $80. That's still small money for a good alignment to owner specifications, done by someone who actually gives a #@$%.

I'm still eager to learn how to do this on my own. I bet I spent close to $1000 on alignments for my S2000 over the years. After I put the new shocks and struts on the Focus, I'll have to do that one again too.

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Wed Jul 22, 2015 3:31 pm

Karl Shultz wrote:

...because the other place (not Colonial) forgot to tighten one of the jam nuts at the tie rod.

Geez, that's a pretty important thing to overlook. :shock:

Karl Shultz wrote:

I'm still eager to learn how to do this on my own. I bet I spent close to $1000 on alignments for my S2000 over the years.

I'm actually surprised you haven't attempted this Karl. Everyone I've talked to that has their own DIY setup says it fairly easy but has a little bit of a learning curve.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Jul 27, 2015 11:56 am

Matt McGrain wrote:

Karl Shultz wrote:

...because the other place (not Colonial) forgot to tighten one of the jam nuts at the tie rod.

Geez, that's a pretty important thing to overlook. :shock:

Karl Shultz wrote:

I'm still eager to learn how to do this on my own. I bet I spent close to $1000 on alignments for my S2000 over the years.

I'm actually surprised you haven't attempted this Karl. Everyone I've talked to that has their own DIY setup says it fairly easy but has a little bit of a learning curve.

I have, I just don't have a lot of confidence in it yet. The setup is simple, especially since all I'm adjusting is toe.

Steering wheel dead straight
Four jackstands, two on each side of the car, a string between each pair front to back.
Jackstands are extended so that the string passes through the center of each wheel centercap. Probably not perfectly centered, but it's pretty close. As close as I can get it.
At the hub centers, the strings are placed 3" from the front wheels, and 3.4" from the rear wheels. This is to account for the 0.8" delta between front and rear track
Measure, with a ruler that reads in 32nds or 64ths and has a slider on it, the distance, at the string, to the outermost part of the wheel rim.

Here's why I doubt the certainty of this:

The floor isn't perfectly level, it slopes downhill front to back. Left to right it's level. So since I'm only measuring toe, I haven't worried about this too much.
Many articles on the internet talk about finding the centerline of the car. I haven't bothered. Mostly because I figure there isn't anything I can do about the hub positions, relative to the center of the unibody, anyway.
Other, fancier string alignment rigs rely on having the strings form "a perfect rectangle" around the car, including guide bars behind and in front of each bumper. As far as I can figure, so long as the strings are the correct distances from the hubs, this shouldn't make any difference.
It's string. It just doesn't seem like it should work.

But that's what I've started doing to check and see if anything's super far out of place. Happily, after I installed my shocks and struts this weekend, the measurements didn't change. Probably because I didn't have to touch the tie rods or the rear cams, and I reused the same upper strut mounts. So there shouldn't have been much movement at all, and there wasn't.

JasonWatts · **Posted:** Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:20 pm

Karl,

Hop on youtube and look up doing your own alignment. One of the videos with a blue Evo actually talks about leveling your garage first.

Dug up the link for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZoL1gaWedA

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:14 am

Thanks Jason, that's a great find.

Looks like I'm not smart enough to follow along when he levels the garage with a bucket and some clear plastic line. :lol:

I'm not quite able to follow what he's talking about.

I wonder, though, given a car that has no camber adjustment available, if a level floor really matters? All I'm setting is toe. That's true for the Focus and the BMW both. The old Mercedes is adjustable every which way, and it never goes out of adjustment, so I'm content to take it someplace.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Feb 29, 2016 2:05 pm

Just FYI - $12/wheel for tire flipping. Very reasonable.

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